Are ancient computers still useful?

I have reading up on the the "glory days" of the microcomputer. You know, the C64 and Amiga, Atari ST and 8 bit series, etc. Are these systems of any use these days? Would it possible to connect to the internet?

An Amiga can trivially connect to the Internet using AmiTCP and a SLIP (serial) connection to a host machine correctly configured. Easiest to use BSD or Linux for that. If you have a "big box" Amiga, you can pick up ethernet cards for them, but the most common machines are A1200s with really wimpy 68020/14 processors. Displaying a 640x480 JPEG takes around a minute of CPU time to decode the image! Even my old A3000 with an 83 MHz 68060 and 64 MB RAM (monstrous for an Amiga) was a bit sluggish online.

A C64 can also do it, some nutter out there made a C64 web server, but its use is negligible.

Atari STs have also been put online, same way the Amiga can be, but their limited OS makes things a bit of a fight.

So the best results for web browsing on these old machines is to use a text based browser?

Another question I have will do those systems that hook up to a TV work with modern TVs?

It's my understanding that both Atari and CBM also made x86 systems as well.

IMHO I believe CBM made a blunder with the C128. Why did they put a Z80 in the thing when CP/M was on the way out fast? In fact Atari and CBM should have released systems with both the 6502 and 680x0 cpus so owners of the 8 bit systems would have an upgrade path to go to. Or at least have a addon avalable to run 8 bit software.

IMHO I believe CBM made a blunder with the C128. Why did they put a Z80 in the thing when CP/M was on the way out fast? In fact Atari and CBM should have released systems with both the 6502 and 680x0 cpus so owners of the 8 bit systems would have an upgrade path to go to. Or at least have a addon avalable to run 8 bit software.

They sold an awful lot of that blunder.

If we assume that they could indeed see the future and see the handwriting on the wall that CP/M was on its way out the door (which I'm not sure they did), it would also stand to reason that they'd be prescient enough to know the Amiga 500's in their future and they'd just as soon not eat into their future sales. Add in that Z80s were much, much cheaper than the 68000s of the time, and one's a cheap addition that you can throw in there and see what folks do with it, the other's an expensive proposition...

Well as someone who currently runs emulators of a lot of the old stuff, aside from all the software made available by doing so, it's a good learning experience in general about the way things use to be.

I miss my 286 with EGA card. A lot. It was my dad's work machine before it was my toy machine. I got to see and play with business software long before I even knew what any of it was. Those were good days.

Well, and you can do normal stuff (webbrowsing etc.) on an Amiga 1200 as well of course. I loved that computer, though I am not sure I'd still be using it today like some people jump through hoops to be doing.

Well, and you can do normal stuff (webbrowsing etc.) on an Amiga 1200 as well of course. I loved that computer, though I am not sure I'd still be using it today like some people jump through hoops to be doing.

Yeah, but still it's impressive to be able to use ~20 year old hardware for something useful.

Looks like there is enough AmigaOS(and MorphOS) users buying hardware to keep AmigaOS 4.X on life support.

Should you? Not unless you're really bored. A 6502/6510 is able to be emulated at full speed by a modern PC. I suppose you can't fully emulate the C64's SID coprocessor, but I don't think the difference is relevant.

Just read an article from PC World how some people are running their businesses on the Apple II and other dinosaurs. I can't see why in the world would people use these machines for important stuff. What happends if those systems quit working? Their data being on 5 1/2" disks is bad enough, And I doubt modern software can even read old file formats.

I'm not saying everyone should upgrade each year. But you shouldn't let yourself get so far behind that most people wouldn't even know to use your system.

It's my understanding that both Atari and CBM also made x86 systems as well.

Yep, they were short lived, unexpandable, "look at us we're doing it too" types of systems.

That's not true. Commodore was a major brand for IBM PC compatibles, at least in northern Europe where I'd say they were top three. They sold the brand to Acer (I don't know how long Acer kept the IBM PC compatible Commodore brand alive, but for years. At that point Commodore was the better brand than Acer, obviously this has changed).

It's probably interesting to try and figure out who owns the right to sell computers under various brands. Acer bought the IBM compatible rights prior to Commodore being in financial difficulties, it was just the IBM PC brand. So I gather Escom, who also made PCs couldn't use that when they purchased Commodore (?).

There's a company now that manufactures Commodore branded PCs after purchasing the brand from someone (the wreck that was Escom?), but I bet not from Acer. That other company apparently somehow didn't have the right to the Amiga brand though, which is owned by Amiga inc.

There's a company now that manufactures Commodore branded PCs after purchasing the brand from someone (the wreck that was Escom?), but I bet not from Acer. That other company apparently somehow didn't have the right to the Amiga brand though, which is owned by Amiga inc.

Wasn't there a spat between Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment a few years back? The history of the Amiga sounds like a soap opera...

Like OS/2, the AmigaOS is just another platform that doesn't know it is dead yet...

There's a company now that manufactures Commodore branded PCs after purchasing the brand from someone (the wreck that was Escom?), but I bet not from Acer. That other company apparently somehow didn't have the right to the Amiga brand though, which is owned by Amiga inc.

Wasn't there a spat between Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment a few years back? The history of the Amiga sounds like a soap opera...

Like OS/2, the AmigaOS is just another platform that doesn't know it is dead yet...

That's not true. Commodore was a major brand for IBM PC compatibles, at least in northern Europe where I'd say they were top three. They sold the brand to Acer (I don't know how long Acer kept the IBM PC compatible Commodore brand alive, but for years. At that point Commodore was the better brand than Acer, obviously this has changed).

A little be confused there, Hinton. Commodore made some of the worst PCs in history. There were the PC-10 and PC-20, both AT clones which were cheap and extremely nasty. This was in the late 1980s. Acer did not exist in the PC market back then.

You're thinking of the PCs Escom shoveled out under Commodore's name after Escom bought it. When Escom went tits up, the Commodore name was sold to Tulip (Dutch PC maker) and the Amiga technology was sold to Gateway.

Ah right Tulip. It is some years ago after all, but I can see why I couldn't find anything on Acer and Commodore.

The reason I remember Commodore PCs in particular here in Denmark might be a historical fluke. All educational institutions originally used computers from Regnecentralen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnecentralen), a company that had a similar role as Acorn had to the British institutions. When the RC Piccoline computers were replaced, Commodore PCs were chosen (universally I don´t know, it were the ones I always saw at least.).

A local hotel, part of the Hilton group (yes, as in Paris Hilton) was using Commodore PC-50 machines until recently. We replaced them with Core2Duo machines. They were running an old Novell system, and booted directly off network.

We had serious issues with the new machines in the gym/pool reception, due to the humidity and temperature. The old (but very rusted) Commodores ran fine. The new HP C2D machines, even with extra fans fitted kept overheating.